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The Breathtaking Allegations Swirling Around the Brookings Institution

Posted on Friday, November 19, 2021
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AMAC Exclusive – By Andrew Abbott

Early this month, in yet another blow to “Russiagate,” Igor Danchenko, a key contributor to reports alleging a conspiracy between Russia and Donald Trump, was arrested for lying to the FBI. The indictment states that Danchenko repeatedly told Bureau agents that the information contained within the now-discredited Steele Dossier was sourced from Russia. In reality, the indictment claims, the accusations that suggested deep ties between the 2016 Trump Campaign and Russia were largely derived from “chatter and gossip circulating in American political circles” (and that is describing this compilation of lies generously). Now, one of D.C.’s premier “nonpartisan” think tanks, the Brookings Institution, appears to be enmeshed in the controversy.

For five years, accusations ranging from a conspiracy theory that Trump was an acquired Russian asset to Vladimir Putin “hacking” the 2016 election were largely derived from this dossier and promoted as verified fact across much of the mainstream media. Regarding the arrest, the left-leaning outlet The Nation published an article by Aaron Mate that referred to the Steele Dossier and the media’s fixation with it as “a case study in mass hysteria and media credulity.”

While this latest revelation has effectively severed any last shreds of credibility the Steele Dossier might have had, it raises new questions as to how such a baseless conspiracy theory was accepted as truth by the media and virtually every elected Democrat. In an ironic twist, while the Steele Dossier exposed nothing about Trump, the establishment reaction to the Steele Dossier has revealed corruption and partisan manipulation across the mainstream media, and now, appears to implicate numerous figures associated with the Brookings Institution.

The Brookings Institution is a 105-year-old think tank that purports to “represent diverse points of view.” Danchenko worked at the organization for several years under “Russian Expert” Fiona Hill (who, very interestingly, went on to play a key role on the National Security Council in the Trump administration, and was a “star” witness against the President at Trump’s first impeachment). According to the Wall Street Journal, Brookings was where Danchenko received his “entrée” into the inner circles of “America’s liberal foreign-policy elite.” It was Fiona Hill who introduced him to ex-spy Christopher Steele. As noted by Fox News Contributor Jonathan Turley, “Brookings appears so often in accounts related to the Russian collusion scandal that it could be Washington’s alternative to the Kevin Bacon parlor game. It appears that many of these figures are within six degrees of Brookings.”

While the think tank purports to be “nonpartisan,” the role of Brookings scholars and personnel in the “Trump Resistance” movement has raised serious questions about the organization’s activities.

The day after the 2016 election (something Brookings scholars assured supporters would not happen) Brookings employees were told that they could take the day off to process the emotional trauma of Trump’s victory. Many of the workers who did show up came to work in black attire: mourning outfits to mark the day. While many reportedly acted traumatized and humbled, the work of some Brookings personnel was anything but. Before Trump was even sworn into office, it appears that core members of the Brookings Institution were hard at work undermining the legitimacy of his win.

Brookings maintains a legal website called Lawfare that unleashed a torrent of articles making the case for Trump’s immediate investigation, impeachment, and yes, his arrest. In July 2016, Lawfare Executive Editor Susan Hennessey and Editor-in-Chief Ben Wittes published a blog post entitled “Is Trump a Russian Agent? A Legal Analysis.” They made the case that there were grounds to target Trump directly under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA). This was one of the earliest overt moves to directly get the FBI to investigate the soon-to-be President of the United States on the basis of D.C. rumors.

Normally, the blog posts of a think tank are largely inconsequential to the wider world. In the case of Brookings, however, we know that senior officials at the FBI were actively consuming their content. Last year, it was revealed that former FBI agent Lisa Page texted a Brookings blog post to Deputy FBI Director Andrew McCabe, saying, “You should read this – the D [Director James Comey] surely has by now. Some of the internal links are well worth your time as well.” Only a few days later, the FBI formally opened the now infamous Crossfire Hurricane investigation into links between the Trump Administration and Russia. Wittes also wrote numerous pieces that defended and lionized former FBI Director Comey who later revealed that the two were close friends and had been for some time. In the days leading up to the 2016 election, Wittes published a blog post titled “A Coalition of All Democratic Forces, Part III: What if Trump Wins?” where he coined the phrase “insurance policy” as to what must be done if Trump won. This was one of the most visible and outright calls for an across-the-board resistance campaign against the President of the United States at every level of government and society. The left-leaning New York Magazine referred to Wittes as “The Man Who Made Liberals Newly Enamored of the Deep State.”

Hennessey and Wittes continued the drumbeat of articles all but declaring Trump was as good as indicted all through the election, and all throughout the administration.

Lawfare became the de facto defender and protector of disgraced and rejected bureaucrats who failed in their campaign to take down Trump. Another Ukraine impeachment star witness, former Army Lieutenant Colonel Alexander Vindman, joined the blog after leaving the Trump Administration. Former FBI General Counsel James A Baker, who was heavily involved in the early days of the FBI’s Russiagate investigation, also joined the publication as a contributor. The blog routinely defended disgraced ex-FBI agents Peter Strzok and Lisa Page, later retaining Strzok as a contributor. They, in turn, routinely invoked and celebrated the publication. As recently as last month, Page was encouraging her followers to donate to them. Sounding like she might expect to be a criminal defendant one day, she wrote, “When they ship me off to Girly Gitmo and take away my ability to send texts, I hope I’ll still at least have access to https://lawfareblog.com”.

Frighteningly, Susan Hennessey herself is now on Biden’s national security team, in a post at the National Security Division of the Department of Justice. And for all Lawfare’s tireless “reporting” about the intricacies of Russia-gate, the indictment of Danchenko was dismissively reported by the blog with less than 500 words by an intern.

Brookings’ apparently deep ties to the origins of the Russia Hoax also highlight concerns about the culture that seems to have taken hold at this institution that has been admired in Washington for more than a century. The organization has been the subject of a number of eyebrow-raising stories in recent years.

In August 2016, Brookings was at the center of a major New York Times expose that suggested its research had been heavily compromised by corporate money. The Times reported:

“Thousands of pages of internal memos and confidential correspondence between Brookings and other donors — like JPMorgan Chase, the nation’s largest bank; K.K.R., the global investment firm; Microsoft, the software giant; and Hitachi, the Japanese conglomerate — show that financial support often came with assurances from Brookings that it would provide “donation benefits,” including setting up events featuring corporate executives with government officials, according to documents obtained by The New York Times and the New England Center for Investigative Reporting.”

In 2014, the Institute was involved in another swirl of charges, including allegedly offering Norway political favors while accepting multi-million-dollar donations from the country. That same year, the Institute was revealed to have taken millions of dollars from Qatar under deeply questionable circumstances that many suggested undermined the institution’s scholarship on the Middle East. The think tank was also the subject of a Washington Post article in 2017 exposing favorable coverage of Chinese telecommunications giant Huawei, while the organization also accepted funding from the CCP-linked company.

Brookings’ apparently decaying culture was not merely a matter of accepting donations, either. In 2017, at the height of the #MeToo movement, Brookings suspended senior fellow Leon Wieseltier for his “inappropriate behavior” toward women. And in yet another recent controversy, Brookings has hired Kimberlé W. Crenshaw as a Nonresident Senior Fellow. Crenshaw, a Neo-Marxist, and one of the leading writers on Critical Race Theory, believes objectivity cannot exist, the Civil Rights Movement accomplished little, and openly calls for discrimination on the basis of race.

The ongoing Durham investigation has embarrassed and humbled the mainstream media and many, once-hallowed Washington institutions. While most of these embarrassments cut deeply, an investigation by a Special Counsel’s office is another level entirely. And that is to say nothing of potential civil exposure. This well-endowed Washington institution better hope it has good insurance.

Andrew Abbott is the pen name of a writer and public affairs consultant with over a decade of experience in DC at the intersection of politics and culture.

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Paul Struble
Paul Struble
2 years ago

Lyndon Johnson once publicly accused one of his political opponents of having sexual relationships with his barnyard animals. When his associates accused him of crossing the line, he laughed and said he knew it wasn’t true, but just wanted to hear his opponent deny it.

What he said about African American was far worse.

Prospector
Prospector
2 years ago

Please tell me that the BI is not a non-profit organization.

PERRY BONNEY
PERRY BONNEY
2 years ago

“This well-endowed Washington institution better hope it has good insurance.” – article

While I hope that it doesn’t.

Used to be a worthwhile organization, but, obviously, it has been radicalized against the United States. Time for it to go.

Christopher Putnam
Christopher Putnam
2 years ago

I certainly was one who bought the Russian Hoax foisted by the Brooking Inst. as well as Steele and his cohorts but one is more easily fooled when then president Trump asked Russia to help themselves to our election process on national TV. Then Trump refused to provide requested information by Muller and that further implied he had something to hide and to this day I have my doubts. Why go through all the legal machinations and deception if there was no there, there?

George
George
2 years ago

We all know that any false declarations made against President Trump by this elite think tank are due to Covid. That’s what the democrats and liberals blame for everything. Oh, except for the policies inherited from President Trump when America was successful.

Memyeslfandi
Memyeslfandi
2 years ago

“(something Brookings scholars assured supporters would not happen” If you click on the link you will never once see the article say that Donald Trump won’t win. It repeatedly stresses that Donald might win, even once saying that Trump was favored to win.

Willy E
Willy E
2 years ago

Looks like the Brookings bunch needs a thorough investigation to see if they are in bed with the CCP, and if so, they all should be indited, tried for treason, and if found guilty, incarcerated.

Mario Capparuccini
Mario Capparuccini
2 years ago

Any organization aligned with the Democratic Party will be full of lies. We should not be surprised. I am grateful for AMAC and the Epoch Times. I certainly do not listen to or read liberal news sources.

Eddie Van Halen
Eddie Van Halen
2 years ago

Stay away from “Brookings.” They are covert communists.

hrwolfe
hrwolfe
2 years ago

As much as I do like this column and new factual revelations about the Brookings Institute are welcomed the NYT and WaPo are hardly paragons of facts should as well be noted. The NYT got Pulitzers for the Russia Hoax.

M. G.
M. G.
2 years ago

“it raises new questions as to how such a baseless conspiracy theory was accepted as truth by the media and virtually every elected Democrat”,

Your kidding with this statement, right.

dunce
dunce
2 years ago

Many stories begin with “according to a recent study released by the Brookings institution” and then i know it is not worth my time to read.

Wanda
Wanda
2 years ago

The main thing to this is that Hillary Clinton was involved and the ousted FBI, CIA, NSA directors were also….the people who took this piece of lies and lied to the Fisa Court have yet to be arrested….if you lie to a court to obtain a warrant….that is a felony….yet, so many of these people who were involved are still walking around and should be in jail….any citizen of this country would go to jail for lying to the FBI or lying to a court. They arrested a small person in this big game and should be going after the big guys and we ALL know who the big guys were…and the FBI knows also….do your damn job and start arresting the real criminals.

insidious pall
insidious pall
2 years ago

There is another problem with Brookings. (Dr) Andre Perry has been publicly excoriating real estate appraisers as being racist, white supremacists, etc. He bases his assertion on the fact that a home in a historically Black neighborhood is worth less than a similar home in a white neighborhood. This assertion is packed with ridiculous assumptions about who lives where and that real estate appraisers are causing values to be unequal, thereby robbing African Americans of billions. It wholly ignores the fact that real estate values are created by supply and demand, like anything else. Appraisers do not set value, they reflect market activity based on market evidence. Because most appraisers are white, they are an easy target for Perry and Brookings. Of course the Biden administration has bought into this nonsense and the result is that appraisers across the country are being publicly accused of biased appraisals. Media outlets breathlessly report these accusations as factual, even though they are easily and summarily deconstructed by knowledgeable appraisers.

JPhillips173
JPhillips173
2 years ago

The entire Russian Collusion story can be summed up with a well known old saying.

“You might beat the crime, but you won’t beat the ride”.

The process was the punishment.

John L Davis
John L Davis
2 years ago

The Brookings Institute is one of many deep state fostering think tanks populated by elitist primarily democrats who see “flyover country” as deplorable, expendable, and despicable. They, like fired former Crossfire Hurricane FBI agent Peter Strozck, see normal patriotic Americans who love their country, flag, etc., as embarrassing, smelly sub-humans who do not even deserve the right to be heard.

Hopefully, in November 2022 and 2024, these arrogant narcissistic elitists will get their comeuppance with a red wave election that sweeps their favorite democrat socialist congressmen and senators out to sea and ushers in an era of American Renaissance where we end the Climate Change hysteria, build the wall and enforce our borders, stimulate our energy industry to once again dominate the world’s output, and various other Trumpian policies that had America’s economy roaring.

THESE PEOPLE REPRESENT EVERYTHING WRONG WITH AMERICA!

really concerned
really concerned
2 years ago

You, in any other country this would be treason and those behind this would be in front of a firing squad.

Winston Bela
Winston Bela
2 years ago

So many liberal think that they are the center of the political world with left and right emanating from their own position being neutral. Reminds of William F. Buckley: “Liberals claim to want to give a hearing to other views, but then are shocked and offended to discover that there are other views.”

Atlas Carson
Atlas Carson
2 years ago

So its official! The Brookings Institute is a political whore available for 30 pieces of silver. This is news?

Jack Tavy
Jack Tavy
2 years ago

How do I get rid of the little red circle? It is distracting and irritating. Cannot read the article in peace!

michael king
michael king
2 years ago

No mystery here. The dossier served a political purpose.. To win an election, the Democrats vainly destroyed trust in government institutions and the media

Rkaughen
Rkaughen
2 years ago

For the past several decades the democrat’s propaganda arm in the mainstream media has been living large. Even with the recent contraction that has reduced their numbers, life has been very good to them. But they need to take a deep breath and Google the state of journalism in Russia and China, to find out how the other half, the half they want to become, lives.
What they’ll quickly learn is that there aren’t journalists there as we think of them here. And if they think the recent media contraction here has reduced the number of places to work, it will really focus their attention when they find out that outside of a few technical journals and some sports writers, there really isn’t a journalism profession outside of writing propaganda for the state. Everything that is written is solely for the betterment and enhancement of the state. And it’s the government that determines what those things are.
While most of what the mainstream media does now would be good training for a job in Russia or China, it really doesn’t take many people to cover that beat. So if they really want the United States to become a left wing dictatorship in the form of Russia or China, they’ll probably need to find a new source of income.

Frank Pecar
Frank Pecar
2 years ago

In April 2021, the Brookings Institution publicly confirmed that Special Counsel John Durham had subpoenaed records from the D.C.-based left-wing think tank in December 2020. The friendly reporters at Time magazine framed the subpoena as limited to the decades-old employment record of former Brookings staffer Igor Danchenko. Last week’s indictment of Danchenko, however, provides a perfect reminder that Brookings was ground zero for the Russia collusion hoax, with many key staff embroiled in the damaging lie that Donald Trump colluded with Vladimir Putin to steal the 2016 election.

Given the extensive relationships between the various government employees pushing the Russia collusion hoax, Clinton cronies, and the individuals connected to the Brookings Institution, it would be shocking if Durham did not broadly subpoena Brookings, seeking all information related to the various players and the Russia collusion investigations, including communications between the various Clinton players, Brookings, and Crossfire Hurricane and former Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigatory teams.

Adler Pfingsten
Adler Pfingsten
2 years ago

It will be interesting to watch as the rats attempt to escape the sinking ship…when the God of Sinai, Yeshua and 1776 is empirically evidenced to not only exists but to be fully engaged.

The entire foundation of the false religion of intellectual arrogance Marxianity depends upon the non-existence of God and the shades of gray the heretofore have defined the confrontation at hand; the final confrontation between good and evil pitting those who adhere to the “Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God” against those who do not…the damned who will have but one opportunity to publicly confess. 

Elaine Whiteside
Elaine Whiteside
2 years ago

I’d love to read an article or book where someone could explain how so many people in the highest level positions in government from the White House (Obama using a fake name to email secret and classified intel to and from Hillary’s illegal unsecured email server), (and so did other high level military and government officials also using fake names because they knew it was wrong) – including the FBI, State Dept, IRS, CIA and big brand institutions like Brookings, including high level government officials in other countries – Britain, Denmark, Australia and possibly more – were willing to risk their reputations, careers, income and possibly even prison to lie for Hillary Clinton. Everyone of them knew the Russian collusion story was a Hillary created hoax. Why did none of them have sense enough to know they’d gone too far and risked too much? Why would they have lied for her anyway? Why didn’t Obama tell her “no” on the unsecured non government email when she was Sec of State? Why didn’t anyone anywhere tell her “no”? I really don’t understand it.

Henker
Henker
2 years ago

It’s treason, plain and real, by filth that needs hanging.

bflat879
bflat879
2 years ago

Why would anyone, in the Trump Administration, recommend Fiona Hill for a job on the National Security Council?

Luke
Luke
2 years ago

Why would products from Brookings be anything but liberal or progressive? They’re like NPR – bread buttered on both sides with gullible people sweeping up the crumbs.

Milt Morris
Milt Morris
2 years ago

People in government are influenced by the social milieu that the live & work in. That’s why Washington D.C. is oftentimes described as an echo chamber & a swamp.

Doug
Doug
2 years ago

The democrats are morally depraved TRAITORS!!!!!!! And we will never see any of these guilt perversions of humanity go to jail! Justice is dead in America.

Carol
Carol
2 years ago

I pray this investigation leads to the real culprits of the abuse of power that Obama, Hillary and all the leftist in the Democrat party engaged in! Would love to see some big name players in orange jump suits! It’s about time these corrupt mafia leftist get what’s coming to them! Only when the darlings of the left are exposed for who they really are, will their useful idiots come to see how played they all were! God help all of us!

Joseph Bernstein
Joseph Bernstein
2 years ago

Treat Brookings as a corrupt traitor.

Bob L.
Bob L.
2 years ago

I can’t think of a single reason for the big “think tanks” existence other than as lobbying or even the source of the thousand plus page legislative bills introduced in Congress. There’s no way member’s staffs or the members of Congress themselves are writing those mega-bills. And, with the big money sponsors of the tanks, you know who’s interests are served rather than for the good of the nation or of the citizens. Besides the think tanks, there is the heavily big corporate sponsored Council on Foreign Relations, an organization deeply in love with the New World Order and has a huge influence on domestic as well as foreign policies of our government. A number of it’s members have, in the past as well as now serve in important positions in the federal government. I often refer to the CFR as being treasonous in it’s policies.

Krell51
Krell51
2 years ago

Isn’t this the same organization that convinced the government to lie to the American people about UFO’s or UAP’s as the government now calls them after their own videos were leaked? Trust and belief in the government has been in steady decline since the 40’s.

nancy voight
nancy voight
2 years ago

These people ALL of them should be arrested for TREASON and prosecuted to the full measure of the law. The media that pushed the lies and lies and lies should be held accountable and lose their broadcast licenses. They are ALL guilty of being anti American!

KDESQ
KDESQ
2 years ago

Anyone that EVER believed this “organization” was ever just a think tank is quite embarrassingly naive. They have ALWAYS been left wing and therefore, always corrupt. As soon as I see something with their moniker on it I just ignore it for any actualy truthfulness. Waste of my time.

Tom
Tom
2 years ago

It’s amazing how many institutes and foundations with prestigious names were taken over years ago by those who don’t like the U.S.and it’s constitutional way of life.

Jane
Jane
2 years ago

Brookings is classified, for tax purposes, as a 501(c)3 organization, non-profit, and donations are tax-deductible on one’s tax return. I should think that IRS may want to review that classification…..but that may be the least of Brookings’ concerns at this point.

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